Harvey Kurtzman MAD #24

This museum-quality item is historically important as the very beginning of MAD Magazine (issues #1-23 of the series were in a smaller comic book format), the time-honored humor publication that is with us still, and hopefully will always be. This is the very first conception/origin and drawing of MAD's distinctive logo/trademark; it's also editor/artist Harvey Kurtzman's first drawing of the magazine's gap-toothed mascot, Alfred E. Neuman. Although Kurtzman personally guided MAD through its early comic book format with issues 1-23, his time with the revamped magazine would be painfully short; after a dispute with publisher William Gaines over ownership, he left the magazine not long after this first historic magazine issue. Kurtzman's confident and spontaneous line work on the satiric border reflects the comic genius at the peak of his talent. This is the very first realization of the logo that would become iconic